Noreen Tomassi is Director of The Center for Fiction in New York City, the only nonprofit literary center in the U.S. solely devoted to the art of fiction.

Colm Tóibín is the author of seven novels including The Blackwater Lightship; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; and The Testament of Mary, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Twice shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, he is currently Mellon Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

Rachel Kushner’s most recent novel, The Flamethrowers, was published in 2013. Her debut novel, Telex From Cuba, was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, winner of the California Book Award, and a New York Times best seller and Notable Book. Her fiction and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Paris Review, and Believer. She is a 2013 Guggenheim Fellow.